Tuesday, November 23, 2010

What do you do with broken crayons? My toddler will no longer use them because they are "broken," as she repeatedly tells me. I try to explain that broken crayons still color, but she won't have any of it.

Making Crazy Crayons is a quick and easy way to use up some of those broken crayons and crayon stubs you may have laying around. Gather up all your broken crayons and stubs and remove all the paper wrappers.

Preheat your oven to 185 degrees F.

Find an old muffin tin to use as the mold for the crazy crayons.

Using a sharp knife and cutting board, cut up the crayons into pea size bits.

Mix up all the colors into a bowl or separate by color. Whatever works for you. I mixed all the colors up together.

Fill the muffin tin with the colorful bits.

Place in the oven and keep an eye on them. You don't want them to completely melt. You want to remove them from the oven once they start melting and getting shiny. I think mine took about 10 minutes to start to melt. Once they are removed from the oven, they will continue to melt, so it is important that you don't leave them in the oven too long.

Pop the muffin tin into the freezer once it has cooled down reasonably enough to handle it. Leave it in the freezer for about 5 or 10 minutes, and the crazy crayons will pop right out.

I plan on bringing these to my inlaws' house for Thanksgiving along with a roll of butcher paper and let my daughter and her cousins have at it.

Nitty Gritty Girl

Let's get dirty. Let use tools. Let's create, restyle, design, fall down, fail and try again. Let's make something out of nothing. Let's burn the candle at both ends. Let's switch it up and swap it out. LET'S DO IT!